


i will give you the moon

by mellyflori



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, because there's no way they end up with anyone but each other, poor nicky just wants to sleep, rating is for language, there is some Joe/OMC for plot purposes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27130453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellyflori/pseuds/mellyflori
Summary: Nicky doesn’t even get one good, quiet night.The move-in day is exhausting, physically and mentally, and by nine that night, all he wants to do is take a shower and pass out. Showering isn’t a problem, in fact, his new apartment has amazing water pressure. Passing out, on the other hand, doesn’t go as well.(For a prompt that starts: ok but a ‘your apartment is next to/above mine and i can hear you and your partner dancing and singing and the bed moving and you two laughing and talking in hushed tones and it won’t let me sleep' AU)
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 82
Kudos: 708





	i will give you the moon

**Author's Note:**

> A little distraction while I finish the three bigger heartaches currently brewing in my WIP folder.

_Should he give you a lantern, I will give you the moon - Nizar Qabbani_

_~_

Nicky doesn't even get one good, quiet night.

The move-in day is exhausting, physically and mentally, and by nine that night, all he wants to do is take a shower and pass out. Showering isn't a problem; in fact, his new apartment has fantastic water pressure. Passing out, on the other hand, doesn't go as well.

He wouldn't have picked nine-thirty at night to be the prime time for a serenade, but his upstairs neighbors disagree. They start with Sinatra, so it's not as bad as it could be. Nicky grumbles, frustrated, but thankfully he's exhausted enough that twenty minutes later, halfway through 'I Won't Dance,' he finally manages to drift off.

Almost every night, it's something, Singing, talking, laughing, all at volumes that seem entirely unnecessary. Three months in, the night they move all the furniture from one side of the apartment to the other, Nicky decides he's finally going to say something. Invigorated with righteous fury, he takes the stairs. It's hard to be satisfyingly pissed off in an elevator. He knocks on their door, but no one answers. Feeling vindicated, because of course, they can't hear him knocking, not with the amount of noise they're making, he pounds his fist against the door.

Finally, he can hear the locks flipping, and the door is opened by what appears to be the central figure of a renaissance painting. It takes Nicky a second to get past the big eyes and the fluffy hair to remember why he's here. 

"Yes?" the man says. 

"Is it possible for you to consider the other residents of the building before you start making large amounts of noise late at night?"

The man looks at Nicky, then does a full-body once-over, taking in Nicky's flannel pajama pants, the ones with polar bears on them, and his t-shirt emblazoned with the phrase, 'Science. It works, bitches.' His mouth twitches, as though Nicky's outfit seems to be undercutting his position as the aggrieved party here.

"We'll do our best to keep it down. Sorry to have bothered you," he says.

"Thank you." Nicky turns and walks, calmly, victoriously, to the elevator. 

It's better for a few weeks. There's still noise, but it's quieter, or earlier. Eventually, though, the noise starts to creep up again. The night they start dancing is the last straw for Nicky. Someone doing the tango just above your head isn't conducive to sleep, and he's not about to pretend it is. At least it's the actual tango and not some euphemistic variant.

The same gorgeous man answers the door, and Nicky is momentarily distracted by his mouth. His lips are just so… pink. His neighbor takes the opportunity to conspicuously not remark on Nicky's pajama pants for the evening. The pants are green and pink plaid, a gift from his mother, and he doesn't appreciate this jerk's opinion. Voiced or not.

"While I applaud your dedication to dance, some of us are trying to sleep."

Before his neighbor can say anything, there's a voice just to the left, out of view. "Joe, who's at the door?" Another young man appears, this one a thoroughly unremarkable specimen, perfectly ordinary in every way. The kind whose name is something like,' Todd.'

"I believe this our downstairs neighbor," Joe says.

"Yes." Nicky introduces himself and is grateful that tonight's t-shirt is just boring and gray, so he's maintaining some gravitas

"Well, nice to meet you, neighbor! He's Joe," he claps the first man on the shoulder, "and I'm Ted."

 _Close enough_ , Nicky thinks.

"Well. If it's possible to keep the dancing before ten at night, I would very much appreciate it."

"Sure thing, Nicky," Ted says. "Good night!"

In the elevator, Nicky considers Joe, a man who is so drop-dead gorgeous Nicky has a hard time maintaining righteous indignation around him, and Ted the Ordinary. He wonders if perhaps Ted is very, very smart. Maybe he's terribly funny. If he were rich, they wouldn't be living here. Possibly, he's terrific in bed. There has to be an explanation for the incongruity. 

He falls asleep thinking about that half-smile Joe had as he looked at Nicky's fuzzy socks. It had made his eyes crinkle at the corners. That seems remarkably unfair. Irritating neighbors shouldn't be that attractive.

Two months later, two relatively quiet months, Nicky gets the opportunity to judge Ted's performance in bed. Or rather, his performance on the couch, on the living room floor, somewhere in the kitchen (bent over the sink perhaps?) and _then_ in the bed. However, if he has to judge based on audio clues alone, the sexual dynamo of the couple is Joe. 

Whatever Joe is doing, Ted asks for it harder, faster, and deeper at various points. He praises parts of Joe's body Nicky can't quite make out, and he's enthusiastic in his praise for Joe's overall technique. 

(Okay, there is one body part Nicky can make out. With Ted screaming, "My god, your fucking tongue!" at that volume, Nicky could hardly miss it. That doesn't stop him from pretending he did.) 

Nicky tries to imagine what Joe could be doing that would elicit that kind of response. That thought exercise backfires horribly. Instead of just being angry about the noise, now Nicky is angry about the noise, and he has a rather insistent erection.

He doesn't confront them, deciding instead to leave a note on their door the next morning on his way out to work. In what might not actually have been a good decision, he also doesn't do anything about his erection. Instead, he puts on some white noise, which isn't nearly enough to drown out all the noise from upstairs and waits for them to finish. Sometime after midnight, Nicky slips into an angry, horny night's rest. He dreams about a dark-eyed stranger fucking him senseless on his living room rug.

The note does absolutely no good at all. 

It isn't until they host a movie night, about six weeks later, that Nicky gets riled up enough to complain again.

The first thing Joe does upon opening the door is look at Nicky's pajama pants. They're nondescript navy blue with no design. His socks are plain as well.

"Huh," Joe says. "Disappointing. I'd started to look forward to your bedtime fashion choices." He grins, revealing an enormous dimple in his cheek and those damn laugh lines again.

Nicky frowns. It's the only way to keep from smiling.

"Was the movie too loud?"

One of Nicky's eyebrows arches up.

"Right. You wouldn't be here if it weren't. How foolish of me. Some friends are over, and we're watching _Die Hard_. Can I convince you to join us?"

Nicky's first reaction is a massive moment of cognitive dissonance. Polite invitations are not what happens on these visits. This isn't right. He mutters an excuse about having to be up early. "Thank you for the offer, though," he says and wonders what the hell is happening right now. 

"Well, we're almost to the loudest part; it'll probably happen while you're in the elevator. After that, it's closing credits, and the guests will be leaving. I'm sorry we kept you up; we'll try to keep track of the time better in the future."

"Thank you." Nicky heads for the elevator feeling strangely unsatisfied. It's one thing to complain to your inconsiderate neighbors. It's altogether a different beast to find yourself declining a sincere invitation from a gorgeous, perfectly polite man, albeit one with no appreciation for ironically enthusiastic sleepwear. 

The second time Nicky overhears their enthusiastic sex life, he puts his headphones on, turns up the white noise, and reads for an hour, resigning himself to being a little more tired than usual tomorrow. When he pulls one side of the headphones away from his head, Nicky is just in time to hear Ted say, "You like that, don't you?" followed by a murmured reply and a throaty chuckle that has to come from Joe. Nicky covers that ear again and decides to see how uncomfortable it is to sleep in these headphones.

It's a flawed experiment. Nicky's neglected to control for having an erection and the sound of Joe's low, teasing laugh in his head.

Against all odds, Nicky's next encounter with Joe is at the mailboxes, rather than at his door at a ridiculous hour of the night.

"Hello, Nicky."

"Hi." Nicky blinks. "Thank you for turning the movie down on Monday."

"It was ten-thirty, and I did promise you we'd keep better track of the time. Someday, I'll put on a movie so good that when you hear it, you'll come up just to watch it with us." He grins, and Nicky's not sure what to do when faced with that dimple.

"I'd encourage you to try, but I'm afraid you'd think I was serious," Nicky says.

Joe's laughter is a surprised, "Ha!" and Nicky tries not to be pleased with himself. "Well, next week is _The Godfather_ , and you're always welcome." He pockets his mail and waves goodbye as he leaves.

Nicky doesn't watch the movie with them. He has drinks with a friend and doesn't make it home until close to midnight. In bed, staring at the ceiling, Nicky hopes they had a good time with their friends.

He wouldn't have expected lowered voices to travel as well as they do, but the first time Nicky hears Joe and Ted fight, it's clearer than he'd like. The words are almost all too muffled, but based on the tone, Nicky can guess what's going on. Ted says something in an entirely neutral tone. Joe replies with what sounds like a sarcastic question. Ted's voice when he answers is harder, as if his points now have barbs. Whatever Joe says in response sounds hurt, and it's loud enough that Nicky can almost make out the words. 

It goes on like that for almost an hour. Joe sounds increasingly upset; Ted seems to be countering with placating tones and an air of calm reason that even Nicky can tell sounds condescending. Eventually, Nicky can hear a door close and then the sound of one person walking around in the living room and the other person walking around in the bedroom. 

After a few minutes, the sounds of movement stops, and as far as Nicky can tell, they're still in separate rooms.

At first, they fight once a week, and then it's every third or fourth night. By the time they're fighting every other night, the voices have dropped to angry hissed remarks that are usually low enough for Nicky to sleep through. Still, more than once, he stays out late so he can avoid it entirely.

When Nicky sees Joe at the mailboxes again, he looks so tired. There are bags under his eyes, and his dimple is nowhere to be found. 

"Hello," Nicky says.

"Hey, neighbor." Joe is trying to sound breezy and casual, and he's failing miserably. "We still keeping you up at all hours?"

Nicky frowns. "No, not lately." He hopes his internal war about what to say next isn't playing out across his face. "Joe, I know it's not my—"

Grabbing his phone from his pocket, Joe says, "I have to take this. I'm so sorry, Nicky. Please excuse me." He puts the phone to his ear and says to Nicky, "See you soon, I'm sure."

"Sure," Nicky says mostly to Joe's back.

It doesn't end with a screaming fight. It doesn't even end with crying. One day there are two sets of footsteps in the apartment above Nicky; the next day, there is only one.

Nicky hears someone come home, drop a few things by the front door, and sit down on the sofa. Every night, that's all he hears. He's not even sure it's Joe who stayed until they pass each other in the lobby a week or so after things go silent. Smiling, Nicky tries to meet Joe's eyes, but Joe stares at the floor f the way into the elevator.

A month goes by, and still, Joe is only coming home from work and sitting on the sofa until, Nicky assumes, he falls asleep there. It's enough to make Nicky almost miss the midnight showings of Die Hard.

Two months after what must have been the breakup, Joe finally starts moving from the sofa to the bed to sleep. Nicky runs into him in the laundry room later that week. He's shoving a set of sheets and at least two blankets into a large washing machine.

Nicky stops in the doorway, ready to leave if Joe seems as uncomfortable as he had in the lobby the last time Nicky saw him. Looking at the wad of fabric in his arms, Joe looks back up at Nicky, his face stricken. "They smelled like—I couldn't sleep on them like that."

"I would not have been able to either," Nicky says, and while Joe still doesn't smile at him, there's less tension in his shoulders than there was before Nicky spoke. When his laundry is loaded and started, Nicky turns to say something to Joe and finds him asleep in one of the chairs. Taking his basket, Nicky leaves as quietly as he can.

When he comes back to check on his wash, Joe is right where Nicky left him, and he's still asleep. Nicky transfers his own clothing to a couple of dryers, then opens the machine he knows has Joe's bedding in it. The sheets go in one dryer, the blankets in another. At the risk of overstepping even more than he already has, Nicky tosses one of his dryer sheets in with each load. He hopes Joe will forgive him for breaching laundry room etiquette because nothing short of a fire that could persuade Nicky to wake Joe right now. 

Joe's sheets are dry before Nicky's laundry, so he takes them out and folds them, leaving them in a neat stack on the table. By the time Nicky has finished with all of his clothes, Joe's blankets are ready as well. Maybe waking up to find all his bedding folded neatly and not smelling like his ex-boyfriend anymore will upset Joe, but Nicky's betting it won't.

At ten weeks post-breakup, Joe starts cooking again. Nicky can hear him moving around in the kitchen, and he can hear the dishwasher start. 

Sometimes, Nicky finds himself daydreaming about being the one to bring out Joe's smile again. He'll find the perfect thing to say, or make a joke, and those lines at the corners of Joe's eyes will come back. The dimple will come back. 

Seeing a neighbor somewhere other than where you live is always a little odd at first. When Nicky spies Joe at a table in the diner two blocks over from their building, it takes a moment for his brain to register who Joe is. Before Nicky can take a seat at the counter, Joe sees him and waves him over. He pushes the opposite chair out with his foot and gestures as if to say, 'join me?' Nicky inclines his head, acknowledging the offer, and joins Joe at the table.

"It's hard to know what to say at times like these," Joe says. "Meeting your neighbor by chance in a restaurant is like running into your teacher at the grocery store." 

Nicky smiles, and Joe responds with a look that might seem like a smile to anyone who hadn't witnessed Joe's real grin. His eyes stay perfectly flat.

When the server comes back and asks Nicky if he wants something to eat, Nicky turns to Joe, a question on his face. 

"Have dinner with me, Nicky; it will be nice to have someone to talk to."

Smiling, Nicky orders his usual. 

The conversation flows from there to cooking, then to family recipes, then to families. An hour and a half later, they're talking about the best heist movies. Joe has a soft spot for _The Sting_ ; Nicky advocates for the remake of _Ocean's 11_. Throughout the conversation, Joe is engaged, curious, and charming. He does not smile. Not even once. There is a self-deprecating twist to his lips that might be mistaken for a smile, but Nicky knows better.

At the door to the diner, Joe excuses himself. "This is where I leave you, I'm afraid. I have another errand to run. Goodnight, Nicky, and thank you fo the dinner conversation. I enjoyed it." Despite the lack of smiles, Nicky believes him.

"Goodnight, Joe."

That night, Nicky sits down at his desk and takes out an actual sheet of stationery. The note isn't long, but it says what it needs to.

> _"If you would like company while you wait for your smiles to return, I would be very glad to be by your side."_

Unable to stomach the ridiculousness of mailing something to a resident of the building from _inside_ the building, Nicky sends the letter from work. Two days later, Joe finds him in the laundry room.

Standing next to Nicky, resting his hands on one of the tables, Joe asks, "What if we're waiting for a long time?"

"It takes as long as it takes," Nicky says. "What matters is that I'll be next to you."

Joe reaches over and laces his fingers with Nicky's. He drops his head to Nicky's shoulder, and Nicky kisses his forehead.

"If you want a smile while we wait," Nicky says, "you can have as many of mine as you'd like."


End file.
